He spoke of himself as well as Papa, but she would not permit self-pity. “I do not believe that. There is much we can do to influence what some regard as fate.”
“Yes. You’d do battle with the gods themselves, wouldn’t you?”
She heard no mockery in his voice, only genuine admiration. It was in his face as well, in his eyes. She brought Papa’s wheelchair to a stop and turned away from Quentin to check on the others.
Oscar galloped past on an invisible pony, hooting and kicking up dust. Lewis’s coattails flapped like the wings of a great crow. Irene walked as if she were on the stage, each sway of her hips exaggerated. May stopped as soon as Johanna did, maintaining the same precise distance behind, but her gaze sought Quentin with visible longing.
“We will take a short rest,” Johanna announced, “and then return to the house.” She wheeled her father onto the tawny grass at the edge of the path. They were not far from the place where she’d first discovered Quentin. She wondered if he remembered.
He sat down on the ground beside the wheelchair, plucking a dry stalk and placing it between his teeth. “Our session today wasn’t very successful, was it?”
She loosened the strap that held her father safely in the chair. “Progress is not always steady. It is necessary to be patient. At least you’ve shown no craving for drink.”
“I haven’t had the opportunity. I suppose I could go into town—”
“Not while you are in my care.”
“Warning noted.” He patted the ground beside him. “Sit. Even doctors are allowed to rest from time to time, you know.”
To decline his invitation would imply that she found his nearness disquieting. She tucked up her skirts and sat down a few feet away. Irene, on the opposite side of the path, was searching fastidiously for a rock to serve as a chair. Oscar ran around and around the field.
“I wish I could be a more promising subject,” Quentin said. He tossed the stalk of grass aside. “I fear my presence at the Haven contributes very little.”
She opened her mouth on a vehement protest. That is not true, she almost said. You are important… important to Harper. To May.
To—
“You have already agreed to pay,” she said quickly.
“And you have yet to take any of my money,” he countered. “You said that everyone here does his or her share of the work at the Haven, but you haven’t asked me to do anything.” His lids drifted half-shut over his eyes. “I’m not really as lazy as I look.”
How could any man’s voice be so… suggestive… even when it spoke the most innocuous words? “I shall think of something,” she said. “Have you any skill in carpentry? The house needs repairs, as does the barn.”
“You’ll find I’m also very resourceful.” He plucked a wildflower and twirled its stem between his fingers. “Tell me, Johanna—you’ve spoken of your father’s dreams. What of yours?”
She wasn’t prepared for the change of topic. “My dreams are the same as my father’s. To help and heal those who suffer, using the techniques he developed—”
“I don’t mean your goals as a doctor. What do you want as a woman, Johanna?”
The question was much too personal, but she wouldn’t let him see how it affected her. “I do not see why the two should be different.”
“Most women I’ve known long for a family. A marriage, children.”
“I would hazard a guess that most of the women you knew in England were of your own class.”
“You don’t think of yourself as being in my class?”
“My father is of the gebildete Stände, the educated class, but hardly an aristocrat. My mother was a merchant’s daughter.”
“But you must confess that you are a woman, Johanna.”
I have been told in no uncertain terms that I am not a normal woman at all. “I do not deny my biology.”
“Science,” he said. “It isn’t the answer for everything.”
” ‘To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect,'” she quoted.
“More Hegel? I have another for you: ‘We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.'”